Monday, April 30, 2012

If Hugo Chavez Can't Dictate Economics...

By 6:30 a.m., a full hour and a half before the store would open,
about two dozen people were already in line. They waited patiently, not
for the latest iPhone, but for something far more basic: groceries.
…Venezuela is one of the world’s top oil producers at a time of soaring
energy prices, yet shortages of staples like milk, meat and toilet paper
are a chronic part of life here, often turning grocery shopping into a
hit or miss proposition. Some residents arrange their calendars around
the once-a-week deliveries made to government-subsidized stores like
this one, lining up before dawn to buy a single frozen chicken before
the stock runs out. Or a couple of bags of flour. Or a bottle of cooking
oil. The shortages affect both the poor and the well-off, in surprising
ways. A supermarket in the upscale La Castellana neighborhood recently
had plenty of chicken and cheese — even quail eggs — but not a single
roll of toilet paper. Only a few bags of coffee remained on a bottom
shelf. Asked where a shopper could get milk on a day when that, too, was
out of stock, a manager said with sarcasm, “At Chávez’s house.” At the
heart of the debate is President Hugo Chávez’s socialist-inspired
government, which imposes strict price controls that are intended to
make a range of foods and other goods more affordable for the poor. They
are often the very products that are the hardest to find. …many
economists call it a classic case of a government causing a problem
rather than solving it. Prices are set so low, they say, that companies
and producers cannot make a profit. So farmers grow less food,
manufacturers cut back production and retailers stock less inventory.
Moreover, some of the shortages are in industries, like dairy and
coffee, where the government has seized private companies and is now
running them, saying it is in the national interest.

About Me

I was born in Tombstone, Arizona, but moved to California in 1959 when labor strikes at the copper mines devastated the Arizona economy. I've been moving north ever since. Pullman is as far north as I care to live and I'm looking toward reversing the drift.